spirit services question, what do they count as one service? Options Track this topic Email this topic Print this topic Download this topic Subscribe to this forum Display Modes Outline Switch to: Standard Switch to: Linear+

[shon]

I'm GMing my first Shadowrun adventure for new players, and one of them has conjuring skill group at 4 (she's very similar to the occult investigator sample character from the corebook), so I can assume spirits will be a part of the game. I don't expect to include many magical opponents in the adventure so my question is: how powerful spirits really are, assuming they are force 3 or max 4 vs standard grunt opponents.

The rulebook makes it look like they are very powerful against normal weapons, which is my main concern.

I don't want this adventure to look like: encounter 10 hostile gang members. summon spirit. command: destroy the guys. 5 combat turns pass: entire gang dead. The rest of the team goes for a smoke.
But on the other hand I don't want to include a magician with each and every oponent as it won't be very realistic...

Are spirits really that powerful? Would a group 3-5 standard heavy-pistol-armed grunts stand a chance of defeating one without magic and without dying in the process?

And the main question: spirits have many powers. If a player has e.g. one service from the spirit, could that service be: kill those 10 guys, and then the spirit uses engulf, exotic weapon, confusion, accident and any other powers as many times as necessary to kill 10 guys? Or is it: one service = engulf this one guy in fire, end of service?
Because the first way seems really powerful while the second option sounds rather limited.

And summoning a spirit of 3-4 force seems like a rather easy and painless job, it only requires one complex action and force 4 spirit has low chances of getting 2 hits, which means usually the player will have to resist like 2-4 drain max from one summoning. Force 3 spirit will almost always have 1 or 0 hits on the test.

How would you play spirit combat?